*BSD News Article 69272


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From: rdd@access4.digex.net (R. D. Davis)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Will FreeBSD adopt Java like everybody else?
Date: 23 May 1996 22:36:42 -0400
Organization: Society for the Obsolescence of Obsolescence
Lines: 61
Message-ID: <4o37bq$mkn@access4.digex.net>
References: <4m6gdj$8h8@sidhe.memra.com> <4m8abh$7tf@samba.rahul.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: access4.digex.net

In article <4m8abh$7tf@samba.rahul.net>, Rahul Dhesi  <dhesi@rahul.net> wrote:
>In <4m6gdj$8h8@sidhe.memra.com> michael@memra.com (Michael Dillon) writes:
>
>>First, read this article
>
>>http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?960430.osvendorsjava.htm

I don't read marketing-oriented trade rags... Circuit Cellar Ink is a
much nicer computer magazine.  Actually, very few computer magazines
these days are worth reading, unless one is a gullible sap who thrives
or being brainwashed by the marketing con artists and isn't interested
in useful technical details about computer equipment.  Why aren't
there computer magazines similar to the older audio magines which used
to publish useful things like the schematics of amplifiers being
reviewed?  

>   The new licenses from JavaSoft, the division of Sun Microsystems Inc.
>   that develops and markets Java technology, will allow the companies
>   to embed the Java Virtual Machine and Java class libraries in their
>   operating systems....SGI will embed Java in its Irix operating
>   system, and Sun will embed it in Solaris. IBM will embed Java in

Bletch!!!

>   Merlin, its forthcoming version of OS/2 Warp, as well as other
>   platforms.

I suppose that ons could then come to the conclusion that OS/2 Warp
will then be truly warped.

>Unless they have redefined the word 'embed' recently, the above fragment
>suggests that Sun, SGI, and IBM have all gone stark, raving mad and they
>are planning to make their OS kernels into Java interpreters.

No, mad people don't do foolish thigns like that - they do truly mad
things which are fun, like trying to write AOS/VS-like CLI
interpreters in Smalltalk, using a computer system to booby-trap a
house to terrify intruders, digging out a sub-basement to install a
water-cooled mainframe in and use it to help heat the house in the
winter.

>>Will you also be integrating Java with FreeBSD just
>>like everybody else? 
>
>I hope the FreeBSD folks are smarter than that.

Indeed.  As much as I dislike COBOL, if it came down to having to use
that or Java, I'd choose COBOL - that's how much I dislike Java.  I'd
even tolerate a COBOL based OS, using a Java based one, even if it
meant having to type in commands like "COPY-THE-FILE FROM FILENAME1 ON
MACHINE FOO TO FILENAME2 ON MACHINE FRIBBLEFESTERZOG" or
"DESTROY-THE-FILE-NAMED
SOME-INCREDULOUSLY-LONG-FILE-NAME-IN-CAPITAL-LETTERS-LIKE-THIS-ONE-HERE
AND KILL ALL PROCESSES CURRENTLY ACCESSING THIS FILE THEN
HALT-AND-CATCH-FIRE IF PAY-RAISE-REQUEST NOT-ACCEPTED"

-- 
R. D. Davis  *   http://www.access.digex.net/~rdd   *  Computer Preservationist
                                                               
    PERQ Logic Systems & Unconventional Computer Consulting 
                    divisions of Transpower Industries, Inc. +1 410 744-4900